In December 2012, Clifford was questioned as part of one of several probes sparked by sexual abuse allegations against late TV host Jimmy Savile.

His jail sentence immediately hit the British mainstream media news services including The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent news sites along with TV reports on public broadcaster the BBC, satellite broadcaster BSkyB's Sky News and commercial web ITV.

According to the multiple reports, when sentencing the PR man, Judge Anthony Leonard said Clifford had groomed and degraded his victims.

Leonard ruled that Clifford should serve his eight sentences of between six and 24 months consecutively and said that the former celebrity publicist high flier should serve at least half his total sentence in jail.